she wakes and stretches.
“I thought you’d run out on me.”
“Never going to happen,” I say, pressing kisses to her shoulder. “Want to go for dinner?”
She nods. “Mm-hmm. Food sounds good.”
I laugh. “Get up and get ready.”
We both get up and get dressed to load up in my car. As we’re driving through downtown, she yells. “Stop! Turn around!”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it. Turn around!”
I take the next turn and go around the block.
“Right there. Park there,” she points to a spot that’s just been vacated.
I pull the car into the impossibly tiny parking spot and she throws open her door. “Come on!” She’s already out of the car and running toward a store.
I turn off the car and chase after her, not realizing what’s gotten into her until I see her standing in front of a poster of the band in the window of a record store.
“The album dropped!” she says, pulling out her phone and taking a selfie in front of the band poster. “Come on. We have to go in and buy a copy.”
We go inside and the album has its own display. She grabs a vinyl record for herself and a CD for me. “Can you believe this?” she asks, looking at me with excitement shining in her eyes.
“I can’t believe we still have record stores. I thought all of these went out of business when streaming became big,” I say, looking around the store.
She smacks me across the chest. “I meant the album, not the store!”
“Oh, yeah. It’s awesome. Let’s go buy these so your record sales go up.”
We take our albums to the cashier and she gets busy ringing Luna up. “This is a great band,” the salesgirl says, scanning the record and putting it into a bag. Then she looks up and notices that Luna’s the girl from the album cover. “Oh my God! You’re her, aren’t you? This is your band?”
Luna laughs and nods. “Yeah, it’s our first album.”
“Would you sign mine for me?”
“Of course,” Luna agrees.
The girl reaches under the counter and pulls out the CD. Luna pulls the insert out of the front and scribbles her name across it, then signs the CD itself before handing it over.
“Thank you!” she says, taking Luna’s cash for the record.
The girl scans my CD and takes my money before sliding it into a bag. She hands it over and Luna and I continue out to the car. When I get behind the wheel, I pull the CD out of the bag and open it.
“What are you doing?” she asks with a smile.
“I have to listen to it.” I slide it into the player on the dash.
The music starts and she giggles and shakes her head.
“Luna?” I ask, seriousness filling my voice.
She looks over at me, a little afraid of what I’m going to say with my serious tone.
“Will you sign my CD?” I ask, finally cracking a smile.
She rolls her eyes. “You know I will.”
We both laugh and I steer the car out onto the road.
We enjoy our day together and end up back at her place after dinner. We take a shower then lie on the couch, eating sunflower seeds while watching TV.
“So, what was it like being on tour? Was it anything like you thought it’d be?”
She has her feet resting on my lap with her head propped up on the other end of the couch. Her eyes find mine. “The shows were cool. Especially once we became a little more known. You could look out at all these faces who were singing the words to our single. It was amazing. But the traveling was boring and it kind of sucked. It would’ve been nice to get off the bus and go on some little adventures through the towns and find some cool places, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was show, travel, show, travel, over and over. The most we got to see was the highway and fast food restaurants. It was nice having you though. It wasn’t fun being away from you. Every free minute I had, I caught myself wondering what you were doing, and if you were thinking of me too. But it was nice to have someone to keep me grounded in a way.”
I take in her words, trying to read between the lines for any hidden meaning. “So when you leave on your big tour, do you think things will be any different?”
She shrugs. “Honestly, I haven’t given it much thought. I’m just glad to